The Devil & The Good Lord, and Two Other Plays ["Kean" and "Nekrassov"]

New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Near Fine in Very Good+ dj. 1960. First American Edition. Hardcover. [minimal shelfwear to book, a review copy with original publisher's slip laid in, one-time owner's address label at bottom of front endpaper; jacket a little faded at the spine, with one tiny closed tear at top of rear panel, tiny nicks at lower spine extremities]. The jacket blurb calls the title play "Sartre's most ambitious work for the theatre. Outstripping in scope and magnitude his previous plays, this dramatic epic, which calls for a cast of over ninety and takes some four hours to perform, is a synthesis of the basic tenets of Sartre's philosophy. It is based on the Peasants' Revolt in fourteenth-century Germany, a period that he considers closer to the modern epoch than any other; and through the actions of his protagonist, Goetz, the bastard son of a noble, Sartre demonstrates man's inability to achieve the absolute either through good or evil." The original Paris production of the play ran for about nine months in 1951/52, but as far as I know has never been staged in America (at least not on Broadway) -- perhaps unsurprisingly given the massive cast and other production requirements. (And how much would you invest in a four-hour drama about the German Peasants' Revolt? Thought so.) The second play in the book, however, "Kean," Sartre's adaptation of an Alexandre Dumas drama about actor Edmund Kean, was staged on Broadway during the 1961/62 season -- further adapted into a musical comedy! (The third play, "Nekrassov," is "a political satire in the form of a farce, a lampoon of anti-communist journalism in France.") .